Had fun with Sky. Went on a tour of the houses using a map from a store. Couldn’t get past lots of the fences, still locked. Brought home a projector, speakers, and all the best movies we could get on DVD. Set them up downstairs. New movie room? Needs theater seats. Will go with Joseph when we can get him away from his computer. Nice to spend time with Sky. Think we might have an actual friendship going. First steps, right?

—A

Had another strange dream, worse than last time. This time I was floating through space, no ship or suit or anything. Still a stupid pony, because life sucks. Floating towards the moon. Kicking and screaming, fighting. Freezing, choking, dying. Hundreds of others just like me, maybe thousands, all dying too. All had butt-marks, all except me.

There was a face on the moon, not a man. She saw me, reached out. I died anyway. No more accidentally falling asleep while watching creepy movies. Think I’ll go tuck in Cloudy Skies, then head up to my real bed.

June 18, 2015

Dear Journal,

Found an LED searchlight (who knew?), one almost as bright that won’t take a dedicated 5 to 10 kilowatts to run. Runs on 2, which is nice. Put it a few houses away, where it doesn’t face any of the bedroom windows but is still close to the house. Drew some arrows on the ground next to it, and hooked it up to a single-stroke diesel. Little generator should run all night easy without refueling, it burns so slow. Good start. No return signals on the radio.

Been eating canned produce for weeks. Salvaged plenty of boxed food from grocery stores, but the animals have caught on. Plenty of food is just rotting away in the heat. Good news is that the cans should survive well enough, and we can get those out at our leisure. Dog packs seem less plentiful, but they also seem less transitory. I’m afraid they’re settling into territories now. Those still alive are the ones that can hunt enough food to feed their members.

Frightening detail: many of them have set up shop indoors, even though almost every building is intact. Maybe some got left open, automatic ones or whatever, but plenty more seem to have clearly been pushed open somehow. Either somebody’s done it for them, or they’ve figured out somewhere to shelter from ambush and the elements. Makes scavenging into interiors difficult.

Sky is a really good cook. Her meals are wonderful, when she gets the chance to make them. Fresh breads seem to be a particular talent of hers. Good thing too. White flour apparently stores for longer than many other goods. If we can’t get agriculture going again, we may be eating white flour for many years to come. Assuming we don’t die of scurvy first.

Brushing your teeth as a pony is incredibly inconvenient, by the way. My solution? Velcro. Few days ago I made these Velcro “socks” for hooves, with a strap to keep them on real tight. Wrap a little Velcro on something you need to hold onto (like a toothbrush), and it will stick real snug. Works for tools too, so long as I don’t need to use too much force at once.

Solar shower: a silver plastic bag with a tiny tube on the end. Hang it in the sun (scorching) and you get a trickle of warm water to bathe with. Easier to use when you have hands to control the flow. We have a stick it’s taped to, so the flow is in one place, and you can move yourself under it. Privacy shade of some blankets around it, which I’m very thankful for. Sky brags about how much sense it makes not to wear clothes, how freeing it is and how not-sweaty she gets. Can’t say she’s wrong about that part. But we’re talking about the mare I sometimes catch running and flapping her wings about like a goose about to take off (she never does).

Sick of this, and for once Joseph is on-board. Tomorrow we’re going to get those water-producing machines and set them up on the roof, pouring drinkable water right into the cistern. We’ll use generators at first, but a few of our neighbors have solar units of their own. Will use sturdy cable and connect those too for total zero-maintenance. Very dry here (~30-40% humidity), so it will take several machines and much effort to get anything like enough for our needs. Cattle lake is draining. Living in this city is not sustainable long-term. Shame to leave it behind one day.

—A

June 19, 2015

Dear Diary,

Thought I’d mix things up today. Is there any difference between a journal and a diary? Never heard of a stallion — sorry, a man — who kept a diary. Probably shouldn’t mess with success. Managed to keep daily entries through injuries and magic and worse. Never a dull day in Los Angeles.

Dogs are getting increasingly territorial. Pack tried to scare us away from the Home Depot where we had to pick up the atmospheric water generators. We scared them off instead with a cloud of bear-mace and some air horns. Take that, animals! See what we’ve done with our opposable thumbs and science? Wait, we don’t have either of those anymore.

Well, Joseph makes claims to the last one, but I’m not so sure. We haven’t got a translated code yet. Haven’t got replies either, but I digress. The code did change today. Joseph's research has put a name to what the thing is called: a number station. Apparently they’ve been going almost as long as radio itself. Really mysterious stuff, mostly for spies (there’s a wikipedia article about them on the Kimballnet). Ugh, I just called it that.

So the voice on this station didn’t change, but the numbers did. There’s a pause between each repeat, so I’m pretty sure the transmission is: “17-8-1-21-3-9-5-21-20-1-16-0-4-13-0-0-13-17-16-0-5-13-16-5-2-17-0-5-1-16-11-2-3-0-6-5-13-2-2-5-13-16-23-3-0-21-13-11-1-21-3-5-1-16-9-5-20-3-18-17-20-21-6-5-22-11-3-16-3” Now call me crazy, but I swear there was less static this time, and the voice was a little louder. Getting closer? Is that even possible? Wouldn’t the angling change or something? I might not actually know how to do this shortwave stuff. For all I know I might be sending our signal straight into the pacific ocean.

We need a beach day. Joseph hasn’t ever seen the ocean (God’s honest truth, at least according to him), and Sky’s never actually been in it. Weather’s been so nice lately I figure we ought to take the time to enjoy ourselves. Drive out there, have a nice fire, camp one night. Can’t go more than that, since there are a few cows that need milking and the chickens need feeding and such.

Set up water machines on the roof. Have to run our power generator constantly to keep them on. On the plus side the tap works again and there’s hot water and I feel wonderful and clean. A pity we can’t count on technology like this long-term, or else we might be able to stay in southern California. We’re going to have to move eventually. Not sure if we’ll go north or Midwest yet, though. Maybe another colony will show up and answer that question for us.

Maybe this signal is another colony, somewhere not too far away. Hear how I say another like there’s already one, and we’re them. We’re not them. We’re not a colony, though I think we’re friends. Even Joseph, insufferable as he is sometimes. It’s hard not to be drawn together by a shared difficulty.

Okay, he’s not really going through it the same way I am. That dumb smart stallion couldn’t even imagine how much worse it is to be me. Doesn’t have to be helpless. Doesn’t have to feel helpless. Joseph has to worry about blasting a hole in the wall (he keeps away from most magic inside the house to avoid wrecking the place like his shelter from before we found him).

Nobody new flocked to our searchlight yet. But with the total darkness of the city, I’m sure it can be seen for tens or even a hundred miles around. It might take time to get here. Assuming someone who saw it even wants to find other survivors. I would.

I wonder what other ways I haven’t thought of there might be to get in touch with other survivors. Maybe we could play constant rock music from the house during the day (not at night, shoot me). Shoot signal flares at night? God no, what if one of them started a fire? A fire could take everything away from us.

We’re in the middle of fire season now. If there’s still a god somewhere, maybe the lack of humans around will help us make it through the year without any. That’s no guarantee, since so many start spontaneously. No more water planes or trained wilderness fire experts. Maybe one day there will be pones who wear small water tanks on their back and carry little hoses in their mouth. That actually sounds pretty cute! Maybe they’d look like…

Like that? Needs a name. If Sky named her, she’d probably be called… Fiery Courage. Or… Water… something… her idea of names make no sense.

Went to watch her try and “fly” again today. It’s actually the running that’s most impressive to watch. No, not running, galloping. Joseph is still as coordinated as a safe rolling down the stairs, but the two of us have been practicing.

I think I may’ve done it right (without tripping) for the first time ever. Without the shoes, since wearing them makes everything a little harder. I can barely even describe how awesome it felt. The park is only a few blocks across, but that’s plenty of time to appreciate just how fantastic it feels.

Galloping isn’t like running the way I used to. I don’t think I was ever really built for it before. Swimming, maybe, but not running. But I spend every day on my legs these days, and they’re the only muscles I have. I probably couldn’t have even done it when I first changed.

Now, though? Now’s different. It’s hard to remember the feeling of feet, those tiny toes and that soft skin that you could tear on stuff. Human running is like oscillating on two springs, bouncing back and forth constantly from step to step. It’s obviously worked for us, but…

It never felt magic like this does. It takes some doing to get into the movement (that’s why I practice around the lake, a face-full of grass isn’t nearly as bad as a face full of concrete). Once you can shift into the pattern. Back-back front-front, fly… back-back front-front, fly…

I’ve seriously never felt anything quite like this. The ground is just blasting past you like you stuck your head out a moving car, and you know if you trip you’re going to go tumbling and probably break something. The air is rushing past you, mane’s blasting back, tail must look like some sorta freaking flag.

I wish it hadn’t taken me this long to learn. It’s gonna be awhile before I dare it when not on the grass (though the sand at the beach will probably work okay. So many videos of “real” horses seem to be at the beach for some reason).

It’s not fair. Just like eating healthy, running was never this fun when I was still human. It sucks that there were a handful of awesome things that came along with the horrible awfulness of getting my body stolen. It’s hard to say absolutely that being a pony is a bad thing.

Sky can gallop too, and I think she’s less likely to fall than I am. There was no contest when we ran, though. So long as I didn’t trip, she had about as much chance of keeping up with me as the cows. I would’ve paid to see Joesph try it. Let the cows laugh at him while he practices.

Maybe we’ll be able to get him to try at the beach tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to swimming again, though I’m not sure I’ll take Sky’s advice and swim without my clothes. Humans did that all the time, didn’t they? I wouldn’t be an animal if I enjoyed the water without slimy salty fabric making my coat all sweaty and crusty. Warm showers or no.

We picked out an RV to take with us to the beach (diesel, because that’s how I roll). Used the usual handicapped bars and connectors and such to make it drivable. Fun thing about RVs is they’re like smaller versions of what we’re trying to make our house, and we don’t have to do any work to get them that way! They already have water storage, efficient appliances, a generator, and so on.

Sky and I packed it tight with supplies for the trip, including my toolbox in case anything goes wrong. I would worry more about leaving the house unattended, but there’s still no sign of other survivors nearby. Even if some dogs have managed to open doors, I doubt they’ll be getting into the tall, locked gates. Generator and lights will all still be working, so it’ll probably look like we’re home.

Whatever, we can always mace them out if we need to. Worked well enough last time. Even smarter, we haven’t seen any sign of the dogs using tools.

The day stray dogs start breaking into gun shops, God have mercy on us all.

I've finally worked out A's problem - why he hasn't got his Cutie Mark yet. In his heart of hearts, he still hopes that this will all go away and he'll wake up a human again one day. Until he is ready to accept that he is a pony and that being a pony is his destiny, Magic won't let his cutie mark express.

If it happens, it will be due to galloping. He enjoys that, doesn't he? Even as a small pony, I'll bet he was faster than any human as he was doing that - 30mph+

So, the number station transmitter is getting closer? That shouldn't be possible but, if someone is moving the transmission equipment (maybe using it as a homing beacon), it could mean that somepony else is out there. Maybe the reason they aren't transmitting in 'clear' is they don't know how to do so with the station's equipment. They can only move the transmitter and its associated equipment, set it up and let it transmit according to its automatic programming.

I'm starting to wonder if the feral dogs are starting to speed-mutate into Diamond Dogs...

I am also increasingly certain that Luna is behind these dreams in some way.

I think the code is actually simpler than they think, my take is each number corresponds to a letter in the alphabet. That is to say 1= A and so on. Okay now that I've gotten my take on the code I just have to say this was another fun read.

I found a website for cracking codes, and I put the code through it in a couple of forms. I got interesting results...QHAUCIEUTAP0DM00MQP0EMPEBQ0EAPKBC0FEMBBEMPWC0UMKAUCEAPIETCRQTUFEVKCPC turned intothis, andribvdjfvubqaenaanrqafnqfcrafbqlcdagfnccfnqxdavnlbvdfbqjfudsruvgfwldqd turns into this.It doesn't make much sense though.

That's.. foreboding. I guess somebody/pony/thing did see the searchlight. Argh! Suspense.How you described A's experience of galloping is wonderfully done, especially the internal conflict the total elation of doing so causes. Having experienced riding at a gallop I can vouch for the sheer joy the horse experiences. It's palpable (and enviable, really).This chapter makes me nervous, happy and is heartwarming at the same time. Good stuff, good stuff.

Is there any difference between a journal and a diary? Never heard of a stallion — sorry, a man — who kept a diary.

Did we just finally get confirmation that A is male!?

Through my entire time reading this I have been going back and forth on whether the character is male or female and it was one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had as a reader. A mentioned he was a mechanic before and I was like "Yeah, he's definitely a man!" And then I had this whole realization that women could be auto-mechanics too, even though I've never seen one. And it made me question my predefined notions of what jobs are for women vs. men.

Not knowing the gender of the protagonist really irked me for some reason. I wouldn't care if A was female, male, genderless, or even a constantly switching gender. I just didn't want to keep guessing. And knowing that I didn't know a (minor) crucial part of the life of the main character we are viewing the story from made it harder to identify with him. I ended up caring far less about all the ciphers and stuff than being annoyed that I couldn't figure out the gender of the main character.

I wish I could hit the thumbs up button more then once. Every time I finish a chapter I try to click it then I remember I already have. Then I'm like "Y U not let me show my love for the story? I want to give it 1000 thumbs up."

There's no confirmation that he's now male, at least physically. It is now heavily implied that he *used* to be a man, when he was human.

edit:

cipher time!

Another substitution cipher, this time using letter numbers 0-25 (previous cipher used 1-26) as the first layer, followed by substitutions with a twist. Some letters are paired and can be swapped interchangeably. F is equal to a space, and G is apparently a break or "over". Similar to the 2nd cipher, you need to move the last letter of the cipher to the front and after that it appears the last 4 letters of the code are consistent. This may indicates someone is signing the end of these messages.

This ABA pattern has appeared in all three ciphers (I seem to recall, so I don't think it's a coincidence).

This is a learning process for me as well:

It appears I may have made a mistake with my first cipher, and rather than "FLEE SPACE TIME HERE" it may simply read "SEE BEYOND SPACETIME | ????". With a larger sample, this code will become easier to break.

Had another strange dream, worse than last time. This time I was floating through space, no ship or suit or anything. Still a stupid pony, because life sucks. Floating towards the moon. Kicking and screaming, fighting. Freezing, choking, dying. Hundreds of others just like me, maybe thousands, all dying too. All had butt-marks, all except me.

I've compiled an easier to read list of my previous cipher posts for both my sanity and yours.

Also to add, the first cipher was not JJFHJEASZFVTDIJWNRJGFJYJPQ as many thought, but rather was: BBKOBIASZKYTGQBUJRBMKBXBGP.

You can arrive at this using a different version of commonly found pigpen. I figured this out when I realized that this had something to do w/ code, and started looking at coding implementations for pigpen :).

It appears there may be 3 layers of encryption to these ciphers, with the final layer being the signature used at the end. Or perhaps it's just a key that I overlooked and I'm overthinking things. In any case, I only have short bursts of time to work on these so they're done rather quickly (and sloppily) so please point out any mistakes you see in my reasoning. It's also possible that it really is just padding and pseudo random noise.

edit: Wow I feel stupid, all this talk about HAM, and I just realized that WLDQ may be a HAM callsign. This would imply that it is another survivor.

I'm assuming the code is a substitution of English letters to numbers, with each number representing one and only one letter. That means I can use the properties of English words to find vulnerabilities in the code.

First, the "break" between words. There should be a number that separates words from each other, and it will be one that repeats very regularly. The most frequent letters, just from a visual estimate, are 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 13. It won't be 0, because the last "word" is too long and there's a 0-0 double. The 13-0-0-13 sequence and the last stretch prevent 13 from being the break. It isn't likely to be 1, 2, or 3, based on word length, while 5 breaks the code up nicely.

There are only a few sequences of doubled letters in English. Last time, I was able to find AABCC, which is most commonly CCESS, but this code didn't have anything so neat. What it did have was 13-0-0-13; this can only really be a consonant and a vowel, such as ABBA, ASSA, ISSI, OMMO, etc. Expanding it a bit further, we have the word 21-20-1-16-0-4-13-0-0-13-17-16-0, which is pretty obviously "TRANSMISSIONS". With 13 coding for I, the sequence 13-2-2 can only be "ILL".

The coding sequence is based on a single word. The letters of that word are the letters corresponding to the numbers from 0 to the break. The rest of the letters are placed alphabetically after the new line, which comes after the break, and no letter used in the code word is repeated. So, for the code word HUMANITY, H is 0, A is 3, T is 6, 8 is the break, and 9 is a new line. 10 would be A, but A is in the code word, so B takes its place, making 11 code for C and so on.

S is 0, A is 1, L is 2, and M is 4, with 5 being the break and 6 being a new line. What's a 5-letter word that contains SAL-M? Salem, of course. The last four letters of the last message were either a clue or a staggering coincidence. Now that we know the code word, the rest of the message is easy to break.

Starting at 0, the numbers correspond to, in order: SALEM_|BCDFGHIJKNOPQRTUVWXYZ.

"OCATED_TRANSMISSIONS_IN_LOS_ANGLES|_ILL_INVESTIGATE_AND_REPORT|_UGENE". The first part is straightforward. The only remaining uncertainty is "UGENE". I doubt it's the next code word, since the E is repeated, so I figure it's the end of Eugene. The last message could have been from someone named Calem. If the next message happens to be broken with EUGN, then I'll be very surprised.

I think you'll find that the spelling clears up quickly. Also, like all the previous ciphers, you have to move the last character of the cipher to the beginning. With that, you have the word "located".

** this one is a little bit weird, since it doesn't seem to follow the 4 letter ending, with only 3 letters and what appears to be IHCRM, though H is supposed to be a space if it is consistent with the rest of the phrase. Perhaps H doubles as another letter like in the 3rd cipher?

There was a face on the moon, not a man. She saw me, reached out. I died anyway. No more accidentally falling asleep while watching creepy movies. Think I’ll go tuck in Cloudy Skies, then head up to my real bed.

Thought I’d mix things up today. Is there any difference between a journal and a diary? Never heard of a stallion — sorry, a man — who kept a diary. Probably shouldn’t mess with success. Managed to keep daily entries through injuries and magic and worse. Never a dull day in Los Angeles.

Hahaha!

Nice description of A and her reaction to running as a horsebeast, that was a neat perspective.

6082488To me, that seems a bit like manipulating the code to get the result you'd expect. There's definitely a difference between:LOS_ANGLES (2-17-0-5-1-16-11-2-3-0)andLOS_ANGELES (2-17-0-5-1-16-11-3-2-3-0).

You have F as a space and G as a break, but you manage to get ANGELES (7 letters) out of FBQLCDAGF (6 letters between the F and GF). I don't think it can be corrected by simply changing the substitution. I figure A might have copied it down incorrectly, or else it was broadcast by someone who couldn't spell. Everything else works too well.

I don't know where you're getting moving the last letter to the beginning from. A makes mention of a pause between loops of the message, so I don't think it's likely that the end belongs at the beginning; that seems like a pretty big oversight. The first word of the last message could well have been "RESERVATION", not "PRESERVATION", and if there's a missing E in ANGELES, there could just be a missing L in LOCATED (even a missing P in PRESERVATION).

I would guess that the people sending these transmissions have a predetermined list of code words, and they try the message against each until they find something sensible. I also don't think the rune circle is necessarily related, but there aren't enough letters for my statistical methods to crack it, so I can't be sure.

Seems too strange to be coincidence IMO. Your argument of "manipulating the code to get what you want" is equally applicable to you assuming that the person sending the code can't spell. At this point Starscribe hasn't confirmed what codes are correct, or if ANY of our codes are correct. Everything is supposition at this point. I would like to point out that you are assuming fault on both A and / or the sender, when it is more likely that we are the ones who simply don't understand the pattern to the code.

If you look at the previous two ciphers, both have had a tail section which seem to be a jumble of letters. One of my suspicions is that they may provide hints to the subsequent ciphers. ALE appears in the end of the 2nd cipher, but it's not conclusive. All three ciphers so far have also operated with this last character --> first character pattern.

G may be both a break and another letter. I believe historically there have been some ciphers which have used single letters to represent two or multiple letters.

After that chapter where Alex got a vision of Equestria it seems that my theory about Equestria being a future version of Earth is wrong. However, I have a different idea. In the "Reflections" arc of the IDW comics, the Mane Six traveled from the Equestria we know and love to an alternate universe version of Equestria where everypony's moralities were inverted. The good were evil and the evil good. In that story, because of Celestia constantly hopping back and forth between the two, both world began merging together. What if something similar is happening in this world??? If Equestria Girls is anything to go by, Equestia and our world (or at least a world that's very similar to ours) are right next to each other. If those two worlds somehow collided, then element of each world would begin spilling over into the other. Already we've seen the animals acting much more sentient (just like in Equestria) and the drought could be explained by the fact that in Equestria, rain can't happen without the weather manipulation of Pegasi. Also, if we assume that Alex's recent dreams are, in fact, not dreams but visions, that means elements of Earth are also spilling over into Equestria (such as airplanes for example). In fact, for whatever reason, Earth's influence on Equesria actually seems much greater then Equestria's influence on Earth. That would actually explain what happened to everyone. They got stuck in Equestria.

6081080It is possible if the transmission isn't really a "number station", but is someone with a mobile transmitter who is physically getting closer. Of course, such mobile transmitters have a limited range... but limited might still be many hundreds of miles.

6081227Yeah, I actually based what I wrote here on my own experiences riding. I haven't done it as much as I would've liked, but my parents did insist on a proper Equestrian training when I was younger, so I got to enjoy things like this. Hah. Equestrian training.

In all seriousness though, I had no idea things were going to go as long for this character. I don't think it's an experiment I would repeat. It's fun to see the speculation, the various times people have been completely convinced one way or another. If I were reading this, I would just pick one sex, stick with it, and then stop worrying about it unless the story said anything explicit one way or the other. I wouldn't want to stress about it at all.

6081330Yeah, gunshots would be extremely clear. Those things would echo for miles around if they were anything larger than CB rounds.

6081361I think if the characters get their way they would have as large a gathering as possible. Three characters is a great dynamic for a story though, so that's the balance to keep.

6081581That does seem exactly the sort of knowledge Joseph would've done everything in his power to archive. It's hard to say what he stored specifically, but I would be very surprised if the entire contents of stack overflow wasn't there.

6081652That would be awesome, though it would also make stories very confusing. Personally, I wish you could only thumbs up or down with a comment, like Steam does things. That way we could get rid of the "comment trolls" that easily downvote a story without even looking at it. That way usernames and downvotes would be attached to one another, so we could catch the trolls and make it harder for someone who hasn't read the story to rate it. I don't mind somebody who doesn't like my work downvoting me (there are plenty of good reasons to do that), but they sure as heck better have read it first.

6082405Just so long as the timberwolves aren't involved, I think we should be okay.

6082542Searchlights were a really neat idea. Pretty sure it was Reality Check who suggested it, though. This isn't one of those times I can take credit for having thought of the idea and just not posted it yet. That one was all him.

6082964Quite possibly, though this might depend on location. It might be the gryphons all ended up too far away for A to ever run into them.

6083588As a long time roleplaying gamer and a few-time larper, I definitely wouldn't tell anyone I'd done that stuff unless there was clear evidence that they did too. Want a relationship of trust after the end, I wouldn't want to introduce any factor that might take away from that feeling.

My original theory was that 'A' was a man who was transformed into a mare and refuses to acknowledge/address it. 'A's statement here... doesn't refute that theory at all. Especially since 'A' went ahead and did something that (s)he claimed that men never did. Or the fact that Sky was mentioned as being uncomfortable around Joe at first, probably because he was a stallion. If so, why was she never mentioned as being uncomfortable around 'A'?